Posted
by
samzenpuson Thursday June 14, 2012 @07:26PM
from the vat-kiddies dept.

An anonymous reader writes in with a story about a milestone in stem cell medicine. "A ten year old girl became the first person in the world to get a major blood vessel replaced by one grown using her own stem cells. The 10-year-old from Sweden had a blockage of a vein from her liver. The doctors decided to give her a new vein instead of a liver transplant or giving her a vein from her own body, Associated Press reported. The team from University of Gothenburg first took 9 cm vein segment from a dead man and stripped all living cells from it, leaving behind only a protein structure. They later reconstructed the vein by using cells from the girl's own bone marrow. The new graft was then put in the girl's body two weeks later."

Cattle don't get a say in the matter. If we start doing this in bulk we would be better off finding commonly slaughtered animals that can provide the structure rather than consenting humans to meet demand. Granted, even if we don't go the animal route the percentage of compatible donors just skyrocketed for those that can wait a while for an organ - such as my own cousin who is awaiting a heart.

No, the can't. There is exactly no potential that the will become human.

The are the discarded remnants from in vitro fertilization.But due to willful ignorance, and the arrogance to shove that ignorance down everyone's throat, federal funding in the US was cut. Undermining one of the potential biggest medical innovation of all time as well as putting the US innovators 10 years behind.

Subtle inter-specie difference in the amino acid sequence (and more rarely protein folding) might be recognised by the child's immune system as "foreign" and rejected.

The best long term solution would be to custom 3D-print the protein structure. But that would require technology which is not available/developed under the time constrains of saving this specific child's life. Thus, the "dead body" option was picked up for being quickly usable.